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Were the latest images of Kim Jong-il Photoshopped?

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reads: "We give our lives for the revolution of the great Kim Jong-il'"

In order to
hush rumours about Kim Jong-il's death, the North Korean authorities released
photos of the "dear leader" inspecting his troops earlier this week. But
a Chinese blogger says that the photos have been digitally manipulated.

According
to official news agency KCNA, Kim Jong-il was inspecting two army units. He was
allegedly "greatly satisfied to see all of the soldiers fully prepared (...)
to be capable of beating back any surprise attack of the enemy in time and of
firmly defending the socialist motherland".

The South
Korean and Western press printed the photos, highlighting that they were
impossible to date. A Chinese blogger then found another photo, sent by the
North Korean authorities to the Chinese state media Xinhua and posted on their
website, in which Kim Jong-il poses at the front of another regiment. The fact
that the "Juche" appears in exactly the same position right down to
the folds in his trousers, is already rather suspect. But the blogger also
noticed that in the second photo, the leader's shadow doesn't fall the same way
as those of the soldiers' around him. So it seems that Kim Jong's body has been cut from
one photo (probably the first where the shadow is more credible) and pasted into
the other with the help of image manipulation software. Unless the sun shines
differently on the Korean leader, of course...

The second
photo can't be dated, in which case it's possible that it was never taken.
That said, the Chinese agency that published it, Xinhua, is itself suspected of
manipulating images, like in the case of the Photoshop "beheadings".